Soul singer Maxwell is back with “blackSUMMERS’night”

New album reveals artist’s vulnerable side

This could easily have been the concert of the year, too. Maxwell (shown at the Essence Festival in New Orleans this year) is no longer the skinny kid with the explosive Afro dancing sexily, decked out in silver-gray satin and making like Marvin Gaye. But he’s aged well, and is the most dapper soul man around, handsome, hewn — and man can he sound like Prince. His audience at his show at the Majestic Theatre was easily one of the most diverse, too. The Grammy-nominated soul singer was celebrating his first album in seven years, the slinky “blackSUMMERS’night.”

This could easily have been the concert of the year, too. Maxwell...

At 43, Maxwell is no longer the skinny kid with the explosive Afro dancing sexily, decked out in silver-gray satin and making like Marvin Gaye.

The Grammy-nominated soul singer is celebrating his first album in seven years, “blackSUMMERS’night” (Maxwell nicknamed it “Summers”), the second of a trilogy.

That it comes in the emotional wake of Prince’s shocking death echoes the release of Maxwell’s last record, which came out just days after Michael Jackson’s death.

In concert, Maxwell, who also is celebrating the 20th anniversary of his slinky debut album “Maxwell’s Urban Hang Suite,” has been including “Nothing Compares 2 U” in his set list as a tribute to the funk-rock superstar, who died April 21.

More Information

Maxwell

When: 8 p.m. Tuesday

Where: Majestic Theatre, 224 E. Houston St.

Tickets: $45-$115 at Ticketmaster outlets

Phone: 210-226-5700

He plays the Majestic Theatre on Tuesday. Ro James (“El Dorado”) opens.

“Summers” has been receiving raves for its grown-up, quivering and silky smooth R&B taks on love, sex and “the vulnerability of black men,” as Maxwell put it. All of it is sonically seductive.

“All the Ways Love Can Feel,” for example, combines the eerie genius of David Bowie with Gaye’s love authority, wrapped up in a lush disco beat.

“Yes, yes, yes. Literally, during the first take of the song, I go, ‘Damn, this is so Bowie,’” Maxwell said.

Music & Stage

“I just knew it had to start the album. I just knew it. I’d had so many records where I was just, like, the slow jam king, the slow jam guy. I wanted to come out knockin’.”

“Lake by the Ocean,” the album’s first single, is resplendent in its Princelike touches.

“I was a seed planted in a certain time,” he said of the similarities.

The singer talked to the Express-News last week.

Q. Do you like the term, “neo-soul” which is used so often to describe your music?

A. It is what it is. I feel like we’re more progressive. Neo-soul is something (’90s record producer) Kedar Massenburg concocted because he was working with D’Angelo or whatever. To me, it’s played out. I don’t think this record sounds like anything we did in the beginning.

Q. Did life get in the way of making this record? Or is that what it takes for your art, even if that means seven years?

A. I just never wanted to be a slave to being onstage and being a machine, living in fear whether or not my spot would be taken by some new younger version of me. I can’t get caught up in that; that, for me, is whoring myself out. And I’m not going to do that.

Q. You’ve been including “Nothing Compares 2 U” in recent shows. What did Prince mean to you?

A. Where do I begin? He was everything. He was a very complex guy, of course, very controlling. Of course, he earned that. You just bow and just respect it. He was one of the most incredible artists that walked the earth. I saw him a month prior to his death. The world changed for me. He was a beast, musically.

Q. “Fingers Crossed” is so tight musically, and such a mature look at love. Is it tougher to put yourself out there as you’ve gotten older?

A. It’s my duty. I’m not going to cut off my ear like Van Gogh, but it’s my duty. Isn’t that what I’m supposed to do? I’m supposed to do that, right?

Q. What runs through your mind whenever you look back at your old videos and image?

A. Like, “Why? It’s funny. I was young and youth has its way of wanting to rebel. Trajectories can change. Every step of the way I’ve had to prove myself.

Q. Music has such power to heal. Is it possible in these heated times for songs to have the same impact as during the civil rights movement of the 1960s?

A. Yes. I will be touching on that in the third part of the trilogy, even though it’s written already. But not like you would think, really on the bandwagon. I don’t like to sum it up in one hashtag so to speak.

Q. It’s been reported that you recorded ‘Lost’ and another track without having any lyrics ready. How does one do that?

A. I don’t know, man. Honestly, it was, like, ‘Thank you Jesus.’ That’s how I literally looked at it, straight up. We were done in 20 minutes. If I had to write it out, I think I would’ve omitted a few things because it was just so raw for me.

Q. How important is vulnerability, honesty, pain for an artist?

A. Soul music is supposed to be vulnerable.

Q. Technology has changed the music business in the seven years. Where do you see things going for the artist?

A. The market is all streaming and completely scattered and out of its mind. I don’t even know the math behind half of this computer stuff. It pains me that computers have decimated our entire business.